


finish what i start

by staticbees



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: (aka i wasn't sure how to end the fic and i figured i might as well post it), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, communications officer doug eiffel is not having a fun time, time loops, title is from a mother mother song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 20:44:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12896433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staticbees/pseuds/staticbees
Summary: “minkowski, do you copy?” hilbert demands. “can anybody hear–”and then there’s an explosion and a bang that echoes through the ship, and eiffel has a pounding headache that just won’t go away no matter how hard he tries to ignore it and a nosebleed that’s trickling warm wet blood over his lips, metallic and copper in his mouth, and lovelace is floating dead beside him, lifeless eyes staring upwards, hands limp and fingers splayed out and eiffel flinches, turns away, and--and he’s back. again.





	finish what i start

_ there’s a god awful shitty feeling of dread in my heart _ _   
_ _ yeah it’s got a lot to do with having to finish what i start _ _   
_ _ and at any second now i think it all might fall apart _ _   
_ __ ‘cause there’s a god awful shitty feeling of dread in my heart

 

“eight seconds,” jacobi says, and eiffel can almost hear his smirk over the intercom. “here we go.” 

 

“how stupid are you?” maxwell spits, and even with the barrel of a gun pressed to the base of her skull, she’s still fighting back, just like lovelace was before she died, just like eiffel  _ won’t _ because he’s a selfish coward who would do anything to save his own life. he can feel the anger bubbling in her words, but there’s a calm resignation there too, an understanding that she’s going to die no matter how this plays out, and in some vague, messed up way, eiffel admires that, because he knows that he would never be able to simply accept his death like that, that he would just end up prolonging the inevitable.

 

“minkowski, do you copy?” hilbert demands. “can anybody hear–” 

 

and then there’s an explosion and a  _ bang  _ that echoes through the ship, and eiffel has a pounding headache that just won’t go away no matter how hard he tries to ignore it and a nosebleed that’s trickling warm wet blood over his lips, metallic and copper in his mouth, and lovelace is floating dead beside him, lifeless eyes staring upwards, hands limp and fingers splayed out and eiffel flinches, turns away, and--

 

and he’s back. again.

 

eiffel takes a moment to process, to breathe. he hasn’t gone back as far, this time. the length of the loops vary, but there are two constants, two things that he can always count on. the first is that the loop begins on day 1082 of the hephaestus mission. sometimes, he’s gone all the way back to the beginning of the day, to hera’s voice waking him up over the intercom, lights flickering on, the constant hum of the station underneath his words as he mumbles  _ “hey, sweetheart. good morning to you too,” _ under his breath. others, he’s ended up chained up with lovelace in the urania’s armory, kepler staring down at him with a shark-like sharp teeth smile etched into his face. but it's always day 1082. 

 

the second constant is that the loop always,  _ always  _ ends when anyone other than lovelace dies. it doesn’t matter who, it doesn’t matter how, and he’s not sure why it singles out lovelace but he wishes it wouldn’t, because then at least he wouldn’t have to watch as kepler shoots her, wouldn’t have to hear minkowski’s desperate yell as lovelace is ripped from her hands and blown out the airlock, wouldn’t have to  _ grieve. _

 

eiffel can’t begin to count how many times he’s gone through this, how many times he’s tried to change something, to make the slightest bit of difference. how many times he’s failed. the memories blend together in his mind like watercolors, edges seeping into each other until he can’t tell them apart, flicker-flashes of  _ “you have got to be kidding me!” _ and  _ “well, well, well! what have we got here?” _ and  _ “you are so goddamn pathetic!” _ , until he can barely separate what’s already happened from what’s  _ going  _ to happen. 

 

he snaps back to reality at the sound of someone's voice in his ear.

 

“so who do we take out?” lovelace is asking. “kepler?”

 

what’s she talking about again? 

 

_ the mutiny. day 1082, hour 8. _

 

...oh. right.

 

“no,” he says. 

 

he knows how much of a problem kepler’s going to be, but there’s bigger threats, and he has to stick to the script if he wants to change anything. he’s learned that the hard way. changing the plan  _ always _ ends up getting someone killed. it’s like a flash flood; if he tries to halt the surging water, to stop the raging current that’s going to sweep them all away, it’ll just pool up and overflow. 

 

“kepler’s a tactician, not a front-line soldier. jacobi’s a loose cannon, but even he’s not packing h-bombs everywhere he goes. the real problem–”

 

“no,” hera interrupts firmly. 

 

eiffel sighs. “yes. the real problem is maxwell. we can’t have her turning you against us, or this mutiny’s over before it even starts.” 

 

she does it anyway, of course, but even if eiffel tells them that, it’s not going to change anything. not in the long run. not when it comes to hilbert, or lovelace, or the tremor in hera’s voice after maxwell betrays her, after maxwell is  _ shot _ , not glitching, just trembling ever-so-slightly, like the flutter of a dying bird's wings. so he steps back, and lets the moment pass.

 

“she w-won’t do that,” hera retorts. “doctor maxwell understands b-better than a-anyone how much of a viola-ation that would be. she would h-hate herself,” the a.i adds with conviction.

 

“that is exactly what she  _ wants _ you to think,” hilbert interjects. 

 

eiffel has always despised hilbert, especially after his betrayal, after he almost killed hera, but he still feels a twinge of guilt when he hears his voice, sees his face. he’s a dead man walking, and he doesn’t even know it. eiffel had thought that knowing exact circumstances of the doctor’s death, having the words needed to prevent it burning on the tip of his tongue  _ (“you’re going to die, they know about the napalm, don’t go down there, the comms only work one-way--”) _ would get easier, as the loops went on. it hadn’t.

 

“hera,” minkowski begins, “i don’t think anyone can argue that maxwell has shown herself to have good intentions.”

 

eiffel snorts.

 

“…but eiffel has a point. she can change your programming. as long as she’s around, there’s a gun to your head.”

 

there’s a long silence, and eiffel’s heart sinks. he knows what’s coming.

 

“p-promise you won’t hurt h-her,” hera begs. 

 

he winces, because he can still hear the violent  _ bang  _ of the gunshot echoing in his ears, knows  _ exactly  _ what’s going to happen to her if he can’t stop it. knows he won't be able to stop it.

 

“we promise,” minkowski says, and eiffel briefly reflects on the irony of  _ her _ in particular saying that, and wonders what value a.i place on broken promises.

 

_ (“so... you lied to me?” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ “lying is a word with many n-negative connotations, officer eiffel. i prefer to think i tactically misrepresented ava-ailable data-a.”  _ _   
_ _   
_ __ “so you tactically lied to me.”)

 

they quickly hash out the rest of their plan. it’s a recitation, plain and simple; say what you need to, don’t get yourself killed, follow the script. again. 

 

the first time he looped, he told the others about it. they didn't believe him. didn't believe him the third, fourth, or fifth times either. but eventually,  _ eventually _ , they believed him. they listened when he told them the second gas canister wouldn’t work, that he and lovelace would end up getting captured, that kepler knew about the napalm. they tried to change things for the better. it didn’t work. 

 

even after countless loops, he can still hear minkowski’s scream echoing through his skull. she doesn't scream. not like that.  _ never  _ like that.

 

seeing them die, time after time, hadn’t gotten any easier, no matter how many loops he went through. eiffel was almost grateful for that, because it meant he wasn’t  _ completely _ insane yet. because it meant that he hadn’t  _ completely  _ stopped caring _. _ but sometimes, after seeing her blank eyes and kepler’s razor-sharp grin and hearing his own scream, tearing raw from his throat, for the hundredth time, he just wishes it would all just  _ stop.  _

 

“eiffel,” minkowski snaps. “eiffel, are you even  _ listening  _ to me?”

 

he blinks back to reality, the blast of an explosion still echoing in his mind. “wh- what did you say, commander?” he asks, struggling to keep his voice level, to hide how his heart is still pounding, even though he’s been back on the hephaestus for at least an hour now. or maybe it’s only been a few seconds. he can’t really tell, anymore. that’s probably not a good sign. “sorry, just tuned out for a bit there, i guess.”

 

she glances at him, raises an eyebrow. “are you okay? your nose is bleeding.”

 

he touches his nose, comes away with blood-stained fingertips. “huh. guess i am,” he remarks. “didn’t even notice.” he sees her expression, and sighs. “i’ll be  _ fine _ , commander. it’s just a little nosebleed. i’ve had them before.” 

 

minkowski still looks slightly skeptical, but she sighs, resigned. “alright. remember the plan.”

 

“yeah, yeah,” eiffel replies, grimacing slightly. “i’ll be  _ fine _ .”

 

-

 

“holy crap. you’re crazy.”

 

kepler smiles. “no, eiffel. i’m just a man who wants to be taken seriously.” he clears his throat. “now, as i was saying: how can i pick between these two? they’re both so  _ goddamn _ tragic in their own ways. hmm… eeny… meeny… miny… moe. catch… a tiger… by… the toe. if… he hollers…let him… go. eeny… meeny… miny–”

 

eiffel sees lovelace open her mouth, hears what she’s going to say echoing through his mind. 

 

“ _ fuck you _ ,” he spits. 

 

“eiffel-” lovelace begins, glaring at him. eiffel doesn’t respond, keeps talking, words he’s heard time and time again until they’re burned into his brain, because dying is just like ripping off a bandaid, isn’t it, and if he stops talking, if he remembers how fucking terrified he is, how much he doesn’t believe what he’s saying ( _ because lovelace is brave, confident, not a goddamn coward like eiffel is, like he’s always been _ ), he’ll never be able to do this. “i’m not scared of you. i’m not intimidated by you. you know the only thing i feel when i look at you? pity. you are so  _ goddamn _ pathetic. you know why? because you talk, and talk, and talk about everything that you’re doing for humanity– and you haven’t even realized. well, guess what? you’re not human. you lost– no, you– you sold  _ every piece _ of your humanity to  _ goddard  _ a  _ long  _ time ago.”

 

kepler looks surprised, for a moment, before his face settles back into confident and cocky. “well, well,” he remarks. “i would’ve never expected this from  _ you _ , eiffel. our dear captain over here, maybe, but  _ doug _ ? the lazy, alcoholic  _ derelict  _ of a communications officer who almost got his own daughter  _ killed _ ?” he laughs at eiffel’s expression. “you’re hilarious. on a multitude of levels.” he pauses. “you know what I see when I look at you, doug? i s–” 

 

eiffel spits in his face. “frankly, colonel, i don’t give a damn.” ( _ and those are lovelace’s words, because eiffel is almost worse than kepler, because he’s just  _ pretending _ to be strong, just borrowing something that isn’t his to take. doug eiffel the coward, the failure. he’s not doing this to save her, not doing this to save  _ them.  _ he’s doing this to save  _ himself _ the pain that comes with losing them, and that’s the worst reason he could ever have for saving the people he called his family. _ )

 

kepler chuckles. “alright, then. you wanna go nuts? _ let’s go nuts _ !”

 

he begins to count down from ten, and eiffel doesn’t say a word.

 

. . .

 

“coming up on the last chance, lieutenant.  _ two _ .”

 

lovelace turns towards him. “eiffel, you didn’t have to–”

 

“yeah, i did,” he retorts. “it’s fine. this has been a long time coming, anyway.”

 

“what do you--”

 

kepler clicks off the safety, and smiles. 

 

“ _ one _ .” 

 

eiffel stares into the barrel of the gun. 

 

“going once.” 

 

there’s a beat.

 

“going twice.”

 

when it was on the other end, when it was  _ lovelace  _ getting shot, eiffel would always close his eyes right before kepler fired, squeezing them shut so he didn't have to watch someone he had grown to consider a friend die right in front of his eyes. 

 

this time, though, eiffel keeps his eyes wide open.

 

kepler shoots.


End file.
